It's like she's a nobody, she's down there and that's it...

PARENTS DEVASTATED AFTER DISCOVERING BABY GIRL WAS BURIED IN COMMUNAL GRAVE 55 YEARS AFTER HER DEATH

- CHARLOTTE HALL

WHEN baby Joyce was born, she was so small they wrapped her in her dad's handkerchief on the way to the hospital.

She lived for two days.

Joyce's mum, Anne Ryan, was separated from her daughter soon after her unexpected birth at home.

She was rushed to Monsall hospital with a water infection while her daughter, born three months premature, was taken to Boundary Park (now Royal Oldham). Anne never got to see her baby again.

The mother, who used to live in Oldham, was informed by hospital staff that her daughter had been buried in an adult grave on the day of her death.

But 55 years later, she found out it was a lie.

"Four weeks ago, we found out she's in a communal grave. They lied to us," Peter, Joyce's dad - now 78 - said.

The parents contacted the M.E.N. after the discovery of a mass grave for stillborn children in Royton.